Things to know when you get cancer – 2026 Edition

I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in my mouth in May 2026. Here are some things I learned based on that experience so far.

2026年5月，我被诊断出患有口腔鳞状细胞癌。以下是我根据这段经历迄今为止学到的一些事情。

Note, since this is on the front page of Hacker News right now. exhilaration suggested that if you are within a 2-3 hour drive of a major cancer center, go there instead of your local community hospital. Use the US News cancer hospital rankings. The top centers usually take your insurance, so use vacation days and book a hotel if you have to.

请注意，由于这篇文章目前在 Hacker News 的首页上，用户 exhilaration 建议，如果你距离大型癌症中心有 2-3 小时的车程，请去那里，而不是去当地的社区医院。请参考《美国新闻与世界报道》的癌症医院排名。顶级中心通常接受你的保险，所以如果需要的话，请使用休假天数并预订酒店。

The largest benefit I saw was speed. At MD Anderson I got a question answered within 20 minutes of a visit, because the doctor called the pathologist who he was on a first name basis with. If that wasn’t at a cancer center, it would have taken days, or more likely the question never would have been answered at all (I had asked my oncologist about this and he’d just shrugged). The rest of the HN comments are worth reading too.

我看到的最大好处是速度。在安德森癌症中心（MD Anderson），我在就诊后 20 分钟内就得到了问题的解答，因为医生直接给一位他直呼其名的病理学家打了电话。如果不是在癌症中心，这可能需要几天时间，或者更有可能根本得不到答案（我曾就此询问过我的肿瘤科医生，他只是耸了耸肩）。HN 上的其他评论也值得一读。